Lanek could hear Talwarg rushing down the stairs shouting orders to the rest of the Talon. While the doors to the monastery had been sealed for several days now, it still took time to get the place ready for combat. Khurzag had been placed in charge of the main floor while Talwarg took command of the defenses on the walls and in the courtyard.
Khurzag ushered multiple goblins into the chambers flanking the entryway, wickedly sharp and serrated spears in hand ready for use via the murder holes. Khurzag had ordered the serrated spears as he wanted maximum damage with every strike as the more corpses filled the entryway the harder it would be for the enemy to reach the final set of doors into the monastery. Behind those doors lay his second line of defense, a group of the largest orcs that the Ebon Shield had, trained to work together in a tight shield wall.
These five orcs would not only be responsible for using their considerable strength to hold the main door, but they would also stand behind the stone barricade at the door to stab into the hallway when the doors broke. Finally, Khurzag had also asked for assistance from Letha, reasoning that if the main hall was breached, the giant dire bear would make advancing any further into a nightmare. Khurzag smiled grimly at the thought of the enemy being trapped in a confined space with that many tons of angry bear.
In the courtyard there was a single defensive fortification at the entrance to the tower. Talwarg had ordered multiple blocks of stone placed on either side of the door within the courtyard. Now that the attack was incoming, their purpose was made clear as he had his warriors move the blocks into place to build a half-circle fortification around the tower door as a fallback position. The warriors taking up position in this fortification were all hobgoblins or orcs and armed with a variety of weapons and shields.
The walls themselves were adorned with numerous makeshift barricades as well, all made of wood. These were clearly not meant to be an actual obstacle to the invaders, but were only there to provide cover from the spitting spiders for the archers. Lanek eyed the gathering horde, planning how he would contribute when he felt a touch on his arm.
“Don’t use your salvos on the main group.” Ivan said, a much more solid looking Lira standing beside him, although only her lower face was visible even in her new form. “Don’t get me wrong, they would be useful, but I have other plans that I think will be a bit more effective. What I hadn’t planned for was a second matriarch of that size showing up.”
Lira shook her head. “It shouldn’t have been possible with the amount of food they harvested from the gaunts. The only explanation is that the second matriarch was already there since a new one would not have grown to that size in such a short time.”
“Tell me how I can help, then. I trust you to direct the defense, Ivan.” Lanek responded.
“Go after the second matriarch to the southeast, but don’t push yourself too hard and put yourself in too much danger. We just need you to delay her while we fight off the first one.”
Seeing Lira’s startled and angry look, Ivan shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry, but do you have any other ideas? We can’t spare anyone from the defenses to send a large group to slow her down and Lanek is the only one of us that has a shot of surviving that fight alone.”
Nodding, Lanek jumped from the tower to the wall and began running to the southeast before any other objections could be raised. As he went, Sanguineus and Kazuma flowed back into their vessels, speeding him along in a cloud of mist.
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Liv and Ograch watched Lanek rush off into the distance before leaping off of the monastery’s walls. “What the fuck? Why is he going off on his own?” Liv growled angrily.
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“I know that you want to go with him, so do I. But look at where he’s heading.” Ograch responded, pointing at the second matriarch. “Do you think we could keep up with him? We can hold our own fighting alongside him, but we can’t keep up with his mobility and that’s what he’s going to need against that thing. We can do the most good here.”
“I know, but I don’t have to like it.”
“I don’t like it either, but let’s focus on these spiders and then we can head out to help him after.”
Liv nodded, hefting her spear and watching the spiders begin their march on her new home. As the spiders approached, Talwarg ordered the archers to open fire. The arrows and bolts took a horrific toll on the enemy, but the tide was endless, especially when one considered the fist-sized spiders rushing forward underneath their larger brethren.
Those particular spiders were the most concerning to Liv as the thought of being swarmed by them made her shudder. At least the larger ones would kill her outright, the smaller ones would pick her apart piece by piece. She could only hope that Ivan had a plan for the creatures.
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From his perch atop the tower, Ivan watched the approach horde before nodding to an expectant Talwarg. As the living carpet of spiders broke into the plaza surrounding the monastery, those warriors that did not have bows or other ranged weapons that stood upon the walls began throwing stones into them. Suddenly, the quiet scuttling and hissing of the spiders’ approach was broken by the sounds of dozens of explosions as the runes on each stone activated.
Thousands of the small spiders simply vanished under the onslaught. Ivan watched the devastation, glad that he had been able to find assistants to carve the runes for him so he could focus on simply using his abilities to activate them. Behind every barricade rested the fruits of their labor, buckets and crates filled to the brim with explosives. While the plaza itself would be devastated by the explosions, he had ordered the throwers to avoid hurling the stones far enough to cause damage to the surrounding buildings since they would be crucial for their future defenses. Besides, Lanek did say he wanted to remove the stone from the plaza for farmland.
He allowed the stone throwers to set their own pace, having intended these explosives mostly for the smaller spiders after having heard Lanek describe the creatures he had run into and Lira’s description of how the matriarch’s typically fought. Ivan knew that they needed a countermeasure as the last thing they needed was for the smaller spiders to find a way into the building unnoticed as their mundane brethren tended to do. This was especially true as Lira had warned him that even the small spiders carried deadly venom and paralytic toxins. Lira had tasked the support staff and children to explore every nook and cranny of the monastery for any gaps as well.
Ivan sighed as he look at the approaching horde, eyes locked on the matriarch herself. Gods, what I wouldn’t give for a damn ballista or two. I doubt any were still intact on the walls after so many centuries without maintenance, though.
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Lira stood on the wall next to Liv and Ograch, biding her time. She was nervous, but also excited as she prepared to take part in battle once more after so many lifetimes surrounded by the creatures that had destroyed her home and people. While the spiders before her had not been responsible for that, they would do until she could take revenge on the dungeon itself.
She watched as the larger spiders broke into the plaza and began channeling energy through her new form. Power surged through her, power that she had not felt since before she had become a spirit tied to Caelis. Blue light began sparking in and out of existence all around her, causing Liv to subtly take a step away and take the explosive stones with her. Clouds gathered above the monastery, everything to the edge of the plaza into shade. She sighed in disappointment for a moment at the limits of her range, but steeled herself. This will be enough.
Her old form had not been built for combat but for administration, the rulers of the city reasonably feeling that any combat would be taken care of by the military, guards, and adventurers. However, her new form was created specifically for combat, to help protect those around her. Mana flowed into her limbs from the monastery’s reserves, giving her a much larger power source than she had enjoyed in life.
If anyone had been able to see inside her hood they would have seen a look of pure wrath on her face, all of the helplessness she had felt over the many years providing fuel for her anger. These creatures would know pain and death, for the Stormcaller had returned to the world.